What Hosting Service Do You Use?

I know about Photobucket, who else would you guys recommend? Is setting up your own website a better solution than a hosting service?

I need to do something soon so any advice would be appreciated...:D

Are you talking about for hosting photos? I use Google's Picasa. I can't really compare it since I havn't use any of the others, but I think it ROCs! I find it easier to use than putting pics on my regular web page.

godaddy.com

Yahoo hosts my site, but if you are asking about a photo hosting site, try flickr. It is easy to use, share, and its free.....


t

I've been using Dotster for years for my various sites. Never had a problem.

As far as quick and free photo hosting, picassa.

I've used ixwebhosting for years. Very inexpensive, great tech support and I don't think it has ever been down... Plus they have some nice templates for novice users wanting to set up a website...

Maxim PC rated flickr over picasa. I think it was because you have to a Google account to use/share photos on picasa.

If you're talking about displaying your photos and creating a safe, unlimited storage backup of your treasured photos, IMHO, you can't do much better than SmugMug. There is a yearly fee, but I think it's very reasonable for the service.

http://www.smugmug.com/

I did a serious comparison between SmugMug and Zenfolio, both fee sites but without any commercial clutter, when I was deciding upon a place to show off my and safeguard my photos. I can point you to details of that comparison if you're interested.

If you're looking at web space beyond storing your photos you need to let us know so you can get more discussion about broader web hosting.

Thanks to all of you for your responses... My main goal is to find a place to host photos without having to reduce them in size or convert them to a .jpeg. Plus I wouldn't be sucking down bandwidth and server space posting here...

I am considering the whole range of options from getting a domain and setting up a website on Go Daddy or a similar service to the photo hosting only sites...

After logging in and snooping around my work places Go Daddy domain I think that the domain option maybe overkill for needs... For those of you with your own websites I have a couple of questions. First, how much time do you spend maintaining your site? Second, why did you choose to go with a domain instead of a hosting service?

Thanks,

I have a small (very) part-time business and need to host email with my own domain name. I don't have a website nor do I want one. I just want email using my own domain, webmail, and spam filtering. godaddy.com does all of them with a domain account. I don't use the storage space but I can whenever I need to.

Wayne

1) I own my own domain
2) I have it through GoDaddy.com
3) My site is at SmugMug
4) I have the pro-service from them - for $150/year, I have UNLIMITED storage and bandwidth (for all intents and purposes...) - and it gives me the ability to have my site w/ my own URL.
5) Total control over how your site looks.
6) GREAT online help. No, check that: AMAZING online help!
7) They have an online forum that makes customization of the site super simple.
8) Great upload tools
9) good (no one, IMO, has "great") security to protect your images
10) ability to modify and manage access to your images (Flickr, which I also have, is one size fits all - all can DL or all are locked)

both are linked at the bottom of my signature to go look.

-frank

I bought a handful of domains and hosting through 1and1. I think the total cost is about $45 a year. I host my own photo albums there.

Flickr is also a great option, in my experience. I just like being able to load up lots of hi-res shots on my own space and not really worry about space so much as on Flickr.

Snapfish and Sharpcast are both good sites for storing photos. I use both,and like Snapfish the best.

I have been very happy with Google's Picasa site.
I haven't tried any of the other ones so will be reading this thread closely.